Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Assuming you count 7DRLs as roguelikes, I've just beaten my second roguelike ever: Michael Brough's 86856527. I suspect this is the game that Keith Burgun is trying to make with Auro - you should go play it (and ideally beat it) before reading any further as what I'm about to say involves spoilers. For the record, I got 21 points, using three programs.

I'm going to commit the cardinal sin of back seat redesigning a 7DRL - or at least part of it. The programs in the game are generally 'top tier' in the sense they are equally useful for their cost, although there are some programs which are clearly great in combination. I'm going to focus on the few programs which are 'second tier' in the sense they are missing one of either overall utility or interesting synergy: the four I feel fall into this category are ANTI_V, KILL_D, DCRPT and to a lesser extent BOMB - I'm still undecided about POLY although the suggestions below indirectly buff it.

The first three second tier abilities are all enemy specific, and are still useful in the sense that every enemy is a distinct challenge, but they don't have much synergy with anything else, and are still not powerful enough to be necessarily a win-button against their specific nemesis. The challenge of course is figuring out how to improve them while keeping close to the terse descriptions in the current game. My suggestions are ANTI_V should change to 'Damage all virus for $', KILL_D should change to 'Destroy nearest Daemon[s] for [two energy symbol squiggles]' and DCRPT should remain unchanged but end up with a buffed implementation.

Rather that using ANTI_V and KILL_D to directly credit the player, the floor grid under these affected enemies should get an additional credit or energy when the ability is used provided it hasn't already been siphoned. This allows the player to take advantage of the level entry spawns to increase the overall floor grid values, and gives POLY a purpose beyond helping destroy enemies.

DCRPT should be buffed so that while you have it active, you are given additional information about the play area. My initial thoughts were along the lines of having one block with ???? for the program/score and ? for the alert level on each level which DCRPT would reveal, until I realised that there is one other fact which is hidden which would be useful to know: the identify of spawning enemies. DCRPT should reveal what each enemy spawning is instead of the Transmission icon, giving you an extra turn to plan how to handle incoming enemy(s).

BOMB is incredibly useful given that it doesn't take time to use: but it has the downside of destroying adjacent walls which would otherwise channel enemies towards you. I'd like to see the floor exposed by bombing walls to get either energy or credits like other floor sections, to compensate for this and add a further level of strategy to bombs.

As for further program ideas - I'm sure there are plenty, but I like the sparsity of the current design. I am going to suggest one, borrowing an ability in Auro, because it seems to me that the movement abilities .WARP and .PUSH are the most useful and interesting part of the game, and to those, I'd like to add .FORK.

.FORK costs two (or three?) credits, and allows you to 'Make one move freely'. Since using a program takes no time, .FORK allows you to move without your enemies responding - but also make illegal moves such as moving towards an enemy (when you'd normally attack), move onto an enemy or wall, and move off the edge of the play area, warping from north to south or east to west edge or vice versa. Fork allows you to .DEBUG suicide in the finest Nethack tradition and it costs credits to fulfil the old adage that time is money and to try to prevent .EXCH/.SIPH+ abuse.

John to me sounds like several company owners I have had the pleasure of working with - people with integrity, but also intelligence who have inspired those around them. A CEO is responsible for two things: communicating the vision of the company, and holding ultimate responsibility for its execution. You may criticise the decisions he has made, but it sounds like he has made those decisions with consistency and in view of the long term plan for EA.

It is often the case that people forget it is what someone hasn't done which is just as important as what they have done. EA has not gone bankrupt, or become worthless, the CEO has not left under a cloud or in ambiguous circumstances, the company has not become completely risk averse. People may hate EA, and by extension its CEO, because of the SimCity launch fiasco, but it is exciting to see so many people care about a game in the obscure city builder genre, as opposed to just another FPS.

For the record, I completely disagree with always on DRM and to a large extent with the software as a service model (Fuck you Google), but I can see why EA has made those choices - if not why they have failed to communicate them clearly.

Thursday, 14 March 2013

For anyone trying to find the Three Moves Ahead episode featuring Vertex Dispenser it is episode 128, from about the 36 minute mark. (From this twitter query). Not mentioned in the show notes, so I'm mentioning it here in case anyone else is searching for this iota of information.

Saturday, 9 March 2013

Indie Statik features a roguelike primer you could point your friends and family at to help understand the breadth of the genre. (Although by breadth, it seems to favour off-the-wall concept and tile sets).